Mr. Prentice, but I’m no gossip,’ she responded huffily.
‘Under the circumstances I think you’d better make it Jake, and you should know how to keep a secret. I would imagine every soul in the building has confided their deepest darkest ones to you by now. Does it ever occur to you you’ve picked the wrong profession? You seem to think it your mission in life to sort out peoples’ lives.’
‘I’ve had no complaints about my secretarial skills until now—well, not many,’ she conceded honestly. ‘But that wasn’t my fault. I don’t like being groped,’ she added darkly.
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ came the dry reply.
‘I didn’t mean you,’ she said with startled dismay. ‘I know you wouldn’t dream…’
‘We all dream, Nia,’ he replied cryptically.
There was a really tight feeling in her chest as her racing mind delivered various versions of what the man beside her might dream—not about her, of course—he didn’t like red hair and hers was very hard to ignore.
‘I didn’t know your brother lived out of town,’ she said after they’d travelled for a short time in uncompanionable silence.
He flicked her a quick sideways glance that said he’d forgotten she was there. ‘He does.’
‘How far out?’ She was doing some quick mental calculations. Just how long would it take her to get back from wherever he was taking her? ‘It won’t do me much good if you let me go on time if it’s going to take me hours to get back to the city,’ she added crisply when he didn’t immediately respond.
‘Oh, I forgot, your urgent appointment.’ His mocking drawl made her eyes narrow angrily.
‘I realise that my personal life fades into insignificance beside yours.’
‘What is it that’s so damned important, anyway?’
‘I need to catch a train home for the weekend.’
‘Oh, yes, the girl from the valleys.’
‘Actually I live on a mountain, not in a valley, and your acccent’s all wrong. I’m from North Wales not South.’
‘Why would someone who lives on a mountain—the northern variety—want to come and live in a poky bedsit?’
‘How do you know I live in a poky bedsit? Actually I share a flat—quite a nice flat.’ Though that depended on what you were used to, and she suspected Jake Prentice was used to the very best—top-drawer houses, cars, she stroked the soft leather upholstery, and women, she decided with throwing him a sour look.
‘And do you share this flat with the fiancé?’
Nia’s eyes transferred to her lap where she selfconsciously rubbed the antique garnet-and-pearl-encrusted ring on her left hand.
‘Huw lives in Wales,’ she said shortly.
‘Hence the breathless eagerness to get back home.’ His tone held a faint but definite impression of a sneer. ‘I’m surprised he’s happy to let you move so far away.’ She was wilful enough, he thought, thinking of that square determined little chin, to go her own way regardless.
His quick glance, she decided, suggested he wouldn’t have trusted her as far as he could throw her.
‘There aren’t many jobs to be had on mountainsides.’
‘But…Huw, he has one?’
‘His family’s land adjoins Dad’s farm,’ she replied shortly, uncomfortable at the probing nature of his questions.
‘I can’t see you as a farmer’s wife.’
Nia wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he did see her as. She saw no reason to correct this shaky interpretation of the information, either. In one way Huw’s family were farmers, they did own vast tracts of hill land and also a tidy bit of much more profitable lowland pasture and woods. The estate had at least a dozen tenant farms and a beautiful manor house with gardens that were open to the public on bank holidays.
These days the estate, which Huw ran, was almost a hobby, most of the family’s money came from some very clever investments in the leisure industry. If she had still been engaged to Huw and wearing his ring, not the one she’d inherited from her grandmother, Huw might indeed have been unhappy about her decision to move to London. As it was, he probably felt relief.
She gave a quick glance over her shoulder at the sleeping baby—happily, he was still dead to the world—just as Jake slowed down to pass several people on horseback. It really was getting worryingly rural.
‘Why didn’t you tell me your brother lived in the back of beyond?’
‘If I had, would you have come along?’ He glanced coolly at her indignant face. ‘Exactly.’
‘I’ll miss my train. Not that you’d care,’ she added wrathfully. ‘Just so long as you’re getting your own way.’
‘You think I want to spend my afternoon with a crying baby and a…’ He broke off suspiciously abruptly and continued in a reasonable voice she didn’t believe for an instant. ‘If you miss your train tonight you can have Monday off.’
‘And a what?’ she said in a dangerously quiet voice. ‘A baby and a what?’
‘Secretary.’
She gave a dismissive snort that went a bit wobbly because he was negotiating a rough bone-shaking mud track. ‘That wasn’t what you were going to say.’
‘I thought better of it,’ he admitted frankly as he drew up in front of a small but picturesque cottage. ‘I have a healthy respect for red-headed tempers. Here we are,’ he added unnecessarily. ‘No signs of life that I can see,’ he concluded gloomily after his initial inspection.
Nia followed his lead and clambered out of the car. ‘I know you don’t like redheads,’ she shouted at him. Hearing the childish sound of her waspish accusation, she winced.
Jake’s initial sharp glance held surprise and then, as she watched, amusement pulled at the corners of his mouth. Whilst he was still watching, she lurched inelegantly as one heel slid on the slippery cobbled surface. Go on, girl, give him something to laugh properly about, why don’t you?
‘Farmer’s daughter did you say?’
Nia caught her breath and her balance. ‘I thought I was dressing for the office today,’ she replied with as much dignity as she could muster.
‘Is that what you call it?’ His eyes ran comprehensively over her pale green, soft faux silk skirt and matching blouse, they dwelt on the perilously high heels she wore.
‘What,’ she asked, her bosom swelling with indignation, ‘is wrong with my clothes? First my hair, now my dress sense. Is there anything about me you do approve of?’
An expression flared in his eyes before the ebony lashes fell in a concealing cloak. ‘Did I say I didn’t like red hair?’
